Imaging devices capable of printing images upon paper and other media are ubiquitous and used in many applications including monochrome and color applications. For example, laser printers, ink jet printers, and digital printing presses are but a few examples of imaging devices in wide use today for monochrome or color imaging.
Electrophotographic imaging processes utilize a photoconductor which may be electrically charged and then selectively discharged to form latent images. The latent images may be developed and transferred to output media to form hard images upon the media. Electrophotographic imaging processes may be implemented in laser printer configurations and digital presses in illustrative examples.
Some imaging devices use a marking agent to develop the latent images. Ingredients of the marking agents may be varied according to customer demands, for example, to provide improved customer attributes, such as durability and consistency. However, varying the ingredients of the marking agent may result in unacceptable imaging operations in the imaging devices using the marking agent. For example, unintended non-uniformities in the printed output (e.g., flow streaks) may result during imaging operations using some types of marking agents. One example of flow streaks include image density variations with a given frequency (e.g., millimeters) along the page width and individual features running tens of millimeters down the page. At least some embodiments of the disclosure are directed to hard imaging devices and methods which permit use of a wide range of different marking agents while providing acceptable print quality output. Additional embodiments are described in the following disclosure.